Sustainability & Climate Change
Food production needs are expected to roughly double over the next 35 years as the world population grows and people in under developed countries become more affluent and demand more calories. Healthy ecosystems are vital to the survival of all organisms. How can we grow crops without harming the environment? How can we balance technology and global food security? What is the right balance of organic and conventional farming? What role can genetics and biotechnology play without compromising the needs of tomorrow?
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Chestnuts, rats, and rhinos: Can biotechnology become a key tool in conservation?
What do the American Chestnut tree, the black rat, and the northern white rhinoceros have in common? They are all ...
Viewpoint: Despite environmental activist claims, bird and insect populations are not crashing in Britain
The scientific evidence increasingly refutes the alarmist narrative that our farmland bird and insect populations are disappearing due to intensive ...
Key to ocean life, coral reefs are disappearing on the way to extinction. Should we mobilize gene editing to save a threatened species?
Coral reefs are fundamental to the health of our oceans. They cover less than 1% of the Earth’s ocean, but ...
Viewpoint: The gap between agricultural reality and regenerative claims about palm oil: ‘It has become less about agronomy and more about allegory’
Today, the creed lighting up meetings, conference stages and supermarket shelves is regenerative agriculture (RA). ... It has become less ...
Viewpoint: 10 reasons why we should not fear GMO fruits
[1.] Many people think genetically modified fruit is a recent invention, but the first GMO fruit hit the market in the 1990s. ...
Growing rice traditionally releases dangerous greenhouse gas. Here’s a solution
Rice is perhaps the world’s most important foodstuff — it feeds more than half the global population. But it is ...
Avocado orchard of the future: ‘Creating novel types with vibrant skin colors, unique and distinctive flavors and very large sized varieties’
The future of the avocado could look very different, thanks to Westfalia Fruit’s innovative precision breeding programme in South Africa ...
Mutant advantages: Constant change in plant breeding — random and now guided — has precisely crafted our global food system
A new review paper by researchers at Bayer Crop Science, titled Beautiful and delicious mutants: The origins, fates, and benefits of ...
Viewpoint: What happened when a liberal food writer makes a science-based case for glyphosate’s safety and importance—in the New York Times
You shouldn’t drink Roundup. You shouldn’t bathe in it, either. But you shouldn’t worry about eating crops sprayed with Roundup ...
Viewpoint: The organic food industry is a $180 billion marketing fraud
As a biomedical scientist, it has never failed to annoy me that the term ‘organic’ has been co-opted to spread ...
As few as 1% of the world’s population are eating healthy, sustainably-grown food
A major report on the global food system has found that less than 1 per cent of the world is ...
Can CRISPR and other forms of gene manipulation create a new generation of seedless fruits—without the structural risk to food security
Seedless fruit feels like a UX win—no pips, no fuss, just vibes. But the biology behind that convenience is a ...
As the length of winters continues to get shorter, it screws around with animal instincts and many get confused
"In Norway, we know very well that winters are getting shorter. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has been collecting measurements across ...
Food producers exploring another alternative meat: Add proteins from plants, fungi, insects and microbial fermentation. It tastes better than it sounds
Alternative proteins derived from various non-animal sources such as plants, mycelium, cultured cells, microbes, and insects are gaining increasing attention ...
Why do so many rightwing leaders question the science supporting climate change?
"Climate policy and climate research are under heavy attack from the Trump administration," Håkon Sælen recently said at the Cicero ...
Sashimi that promotes healing and skin rejuvenation? It’s not the latest fad skin care breakthrough, but a yummy-tasting cultivated Omega-3-rich fish fat made using stem cell technology
Sashimi that looks, feels and tastes just like the real deal, but is actually grown in a laboratory. That is ...
Bees in distress: Climate change is depressing the aroma that attracts bees for pollination. Scientists are scrambling for a solution
Across 120 publications from 19 countries, ozone pollution decreased performance of beneficial invertebrates by more than 31%, while nitrogen oxides ...
Sustainability breakthrough: Scientists targeting the genetic code of pests
Pests can be the make-or-break factor for a season’s harvest. Between 20% to 40% of global crop production is lost ...
What do we need Seed Banks? 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost since the early 20th century, and its losses are accelerating
Gene and seed banks are not static museums. They are living collections of genetic material, designed to support food security, ...
Viewpoint: The fastest growing delusion in America is chemophobia—and organic marketers are to blame
“Organic” might be the most abused word in the English language. Chemists, farmers, and marketers all use it—and none of ...
Fungicide alternative: Would your crops benefit from a genetically engineered vaccine?
Disease control within crop production systems has been very much centred on the development of complex organic chemicals such as ...
What’s driving food costs inflation?
From rice to coffee, cocoa to olive oil, extreme weather conditions are driving up the prices of staple foods around ...
Michael Grunwald: ‘How to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate?’
When veteran journalist Michael Grunwald set out to write his third book, he was determined not to produce a “Debbie ...
For food companies, GMO was a dirty word. Innovation in gene editing is soaring, changing the public discussion
The BBC reported that scientists at the University of Oxford, working in a collaboration with other international partners, have used ...
What’s the difference between GMO and CRISPR
What is a GMO? GMOs (genetically modified organisms) involve transferring a gene from one species to another to provide an ...
Viewpoint: The MAHA movement’s wrongheaded war on glyphosate is part of a misplaced broader attack on modern agriculture
The MAHA movement’s war on glyphosate is part of a broader war on modern farming — not only herbicides and ...
Video: How our food choices impact climate change
Our food production systems emit greenhouse gas emissions just like fossil fuels. But we don't talk enough about it. This ...
